They All Need Something To Hold On To
by Acrobat Dances a Playful Tune
Summary: After 'The Divine Move' Scott's pack have turned to lick their wounds and heal. The respite is however brief: a new darkness is bearing down upon Beacon Hills and it comes with a vengeance...
1. Don't Cry

The bike thrummed reassuringly beneath him as he rolled up to the lights. It was the last red between him and the wide horizon beyond. Ethan cast his head back one time toward Beacon Hills and frowned deeply. He could never be sure this was the right thing to do. He was leaving almost everything behind for an unknown future.

The decision had been understandably difficult. He had a real chance at happiness with Danny and a chance at finally becoming a part of Scott's pack. The life however wasn't for him somehow. Everything had been so aggressive of late and Ethan needed time away – time to heal and calm himself. Danny had made it clear enough anyway: dating a Werewolf might be too big a challenge and the relationship had been tainted by darkness since it's beginning.

If you love a Werewolf at some point you ended up getting hurt: that was just the way of things. Ethan had only started the relationship as a way to undermine Scott and only latterly fallen for Danny. After the conversation in the High School he wondered how much his boyfriend really knew about what was going on in Beacon Hills.

Ethan turned back toward the light and his heart skipped a beat.

Scott stood in front of him, his eyes a dull burgundy and his hands straight beside his arms.

Ethan whipped off his helmet and cut the engine. He weighed up Scott's body language and his eyes flashed to cerulean at the presence of an alpha. His scent didn't radiate aggression but it was difficult to read beyond that. If Ethan was guessing there was some hope but also a deep sadness behind it. The wound of Alison was still as raw as the one Aidan had left in Ethan.

"I didn't expect you to come say bye."

"That's not why I'm here," Scott said, "are you sure you're leaving?"

"I made it this far." Ethan affirmed.

Scott smirked, "You cut the engine. If you were leaving you'd have left it running."

Ethan frowned – he should have seen that coming. He was getting sloppy – with Deucalion he'd always been two steps ahead of McCall and now he was playing catch-up.

Scott advanced and moved around the side of the bike. "What are you running away from? You have a life here – you have friends, a boyfriend and somewhere that you can call-"

"-don't say home." Ethan cut dead. "We both know this isn't home for me and it wasn't for Aidan."

"Is it about your brother?"

"He died Scott – we both lost someone. I can't stay in Beacon Hills with that weighing on my mind."

"Does it make a difference if I say I want you to stay…as part of my pack?"

Ethan sighed.

"I think a few weeks ago that would have been all I or Aidan wanted to hear from you. We didn't understand it though Scott – we hadn't demonstrated our commitment to the pack and that showed with the whole thing with Aidan. Lydia was devastated but Alison took priority and frankly nobody else cared that he was gone but me.

"None of it's your fault Scott. It's ours – we never took blame for the things we did…we never apologised…and Aidan avoided involving us. I should have been smarter and better but I wasn't – I think the only way to get away from it is to run for the horizon. I'll miss Danny…high school even…but it's time for me to go. There's no place for me here anymore."

Scott walked back round to the front of the bike and placed his hands on the handlebars. His eyes pulsed a brighter scarlet and he let out a dull low growl.

"There's a place for you in my pack if I say so," Scott stated firmly, "and no matter what you say this is your home. Running away from your problems doesn't solve anything and leaving us to go it alone isn't the way. There's a reason wolves run in packs."

Ethan tensed his body, preparing to spring forward and knock Scott off the bike but then relaxed a bit. In a flash he was back there, Aidan bleeding out in his lap and only Derek watching on as the last family Ethan had left the world far behind him. He could still smell his brother's blood on him. He'd washed and scrubbed to try and get it off him but he couldn't – not entirely. It was still there and in any case his brother had left a deep imprint on him. Their bond as twins and werewolves had burned fraternity into them and the blood they shared tingled at Aidan's death: a constant and throbbing reminder that Ethan was alone in the world again.

At that point a single tear sprang free and burned down Ethan's face. It burned with the fire of loss and stood out – the lone escapee, like Ethan himself. Scott relaxed his grab on the handlebars and stepped back.

Ethan swung his leg off the bike and wheeled it to the side of the rode. He stood by a tree and then sank down against it, curling up in a ball for a few seconds before stretching out again into a sitting position. After a few moments Scott followed cautiously.

"He's gone and he was all I had."

"You never know how much of their heart you have till they're gone," Scott agreed, his own mind drifting to Alison, feeling the life seep from her body and her go limp in his arms, "but letting go of love just because you lost someone isn't the right thing to do. Losing hope isn't either. If you go away you leave behind a life that has the potential to be great: and for what?

"You kept saying you wanted a fresh start Ethan – _this_ is it. Forget Danny, forget Aidan and just think about you and your life here. It could be great…you just have to open up to the idea and open up to people." Scott waited a moment, "The pack's still here for you Ethan, and we want you to stay here." With that, Scott stood up and in a flash he had sprinted off back toward the town.

Ethan sat for a moment against the tree and cast his head toward the stars. He looked for some great map to tell him what to do but he couldn't see any.

A voice echoed in his head, "The course never runs smooth."

Ethan turned to his left and there beside him was Aidan. Real and apparent – smirking cockily as if nothing had changed. Then in a moment he blew away on the wind – an apparition dashed by the realities of nature.

Putting his hand down to the grassy ground Ethan pushed off and rose to his feet. He dusted himself off as he walked back toward the bike and swung his leg over it once again. The engine thrummed into life and the machine tensed in anticipation. The young werewolf looked toward the horizon and Beacon Falls and made up his mind.

Ethan gunned the engine and rode off.


	2. You're My Wildfire

Judging by how long he'd tossed and turned that night, Danny was resigning himself to a sleepless night.

The conversation with Ethan was meant to be easy. He'd rehearsed it in his head and thought it all out a dozen times over. Danny would say they were over, confide that he didn't feel comfortable knowing there was a part of Ethan he might never know. In a town that seemed full of the bizarre and strange, Danny felt like one of the few normal kids walking the corridors.

Spending late nights at the computer researching had predictably thrown up a few horror stories. People accidentally turned into things out of fairytales…a girl in Tokyo that wound up dead after stumbling into her witch-boyfriend's pantry and most worryingly a guy in France that at the full moon had turned into a were-lynx after a kinky evening with his girlfriend. Realistically Danny shouldn't have believed it but it all explained too much that had gone on in the town – not least of all Scott McCall's meteoric rise in lacrosse ability.

He lay back on his bed and raised his arm to rest on it. The bed felt empty without Ethan's blazingly hot form beside him. Danny's body was still on autopilot because he'd forgotten to wear any clothes to bed – when you slept with a werewolf you didn't exactly _need_ pyjamas.

There were a lot of wounds Ethan had left in Danny without ever flexing his claws though. There was the fact that it had dawned on Danny the relationship in the beginning wasn't what it had first seemed to be. Ethan had swept Danny off his feet by being older and charming and handsome but he'd had some kind of agenda: at first at least.

Then there'd been all the tension between the Twins and Scott and his group. Danny went from pal to pariah overnight. Once he had realised there was something supernatural about Ethan it had also become an insult that Ethan hadn't actually told him. Some things were private but he'd at least expected Ethan to confide something as huge as that in him…

"We still had good times though –E." Danny murmured aloud to himself in the darkness. His handsome ex was probably half way to his new life beyond Beacon Hills by now. Part of that nomadic lone wolf life appealed to Danny but at the same time his roots were put down here. Danny rolled over in bed: _the past was the past_.

He must have drifted back off to sleep because when he awoke again there was a soft but persistent knocking at his window. He looked at the clock on his bedside table and groaned: 3:27AM.

Groggily he rolled over and squinted at the window. At once something like a bolt of electricity tingled through his body and he rose and strolled over to it, lifting it open. Ethan slipped through in a low crouch and then rose to his full height. The flame-haired boy wore a simple leather jacket and a pair of skinny jeans. Even half-awake Danny could help but be taken in by his rugged appearance.

"Were you expecting me?" he grinned mischievously, eyeing up Danny's naked body.

Danny threw him some mock-shade and rolled his eyes before crossing back to his bed, "It's nothing you haven't seen before. What happened to heading for the horizon?"

"Scott…and you." Ethan confided. Danny curled up in his duvet on the end of the bed nearest the wall and gestured for Ethan to perch on the other end. "This isn't solving my problems: it's running away from them."

Danny raised an eyebrow, "I thought you couldn't do us?"

"I thought it was mutual?" Ethan smirked. "Except now one of us wants to fight for it…and what we have in Beacon Hills."

"It's not that easy," Danny countered, "I mean you're a w…a w…you're like a super…"

"…you could say it in the hallway?" Ethan teased gently. Danny blushed.

"A werewolf." Ethan's eyes flashed an icy turquoise in the darkness of Danny's bedroom at the word.

"Exactly." Danny said and folded his arms defensively. "You're a…_werewolf_…and I'm not."

The werewolf frowned, "Did I ever say you had to be?"

"You'd never get my permission," Danny countered and immediately groaned inwardly – he wasn't meant to be letting Ethan get under his skin again, "and I just like…I struggle to see how it would work. It's all over the internet Ethan…and these kinds of couples have never ended well. I mean look at Alison," even in the darkness he could tell Ethan had stiffened at her name, "are you telling me she wouldn't have wound up dead if she hadn't got entangled with Scott?"

"Alison died to save the people she loved," Ethan countered, "and that's something to admire."

"I ended up in harms way because I was dating you Ethan…I mean what happened in the shower? That wasn't you and sure…nothing too bad happened but it could have."

Ethan frowned at that. "That was when I was possessed though. There's something bigger here isn't there? You can't trust me?"

Danny sighed audibly, "I think how things started…and the fact that you kept all this stuff hidden from me. It's like you didn't give me enough credit to work things out…I mean your skin feels like the sun, your cuts and wounds heal stupidly quickly…you have an amazing body…and there's a kind of electricity about you. I think it's something supernatural but there's a…presence you give off when I'm around you."

"I didn't tell you because I was ashamed: about how we started." Ethan admitted earnestly, his brows furrowing as he formed the rest of the sentence, "How was I meant to tell you that? I started dating you to mess with McCall but now I'm madly in love with you, let's keep going? You know you'd have dropped be like a dead weight. As for being a werewolf…I didn't tell you to protect you. Like you say my life isn't exactly problem free…I just thought you knowing would put you in more danger."

Danny was taken aback by the bluntness of Ethan's speech. He'd always been at once warm and somehow cold. Always distant and calculating: analysing a situation and processing it methodically. It felt refreshingly…up front. Danny reached out to brush Ethan's arm tentatively and then took his hand back. "I'm afraid of it because I'm afraid of losing you." If Ethan could be honest then so could Danny. He wasn't saddened that Ethan hadn't told him – he was saddened ultimately because it cast a dark shadow over their relationship. His life as a werewolf by nature placed him in harms way. Staying with him and knowing that meant constantly waiting for something terrible to happen…for Ethan to be one night warm and reassuring in his bed, and the next wind up dead under an overpass at the hands of who knew what.

At the contact Ethan budged closer on the bed. His eyes flashed a reassuring and calm turquoise again, "You'd never lose me. We're _survivors_, remember?"

"You'd have said the same about Aidan a week or two ago though wouldn't you?" Danny said. He knew it was a sore spot but it was true. How could Ethan make a promise to always be there if his brother had only been lost so recently? They'd cut things off so quickly and amicably Danny hadn't even asked Ethan about how he felt about Aidan.

He could see for a moment past Ethan's controlled shell. His eyes flashed back to his natural darker colour and they were full of sadness. Aidan had been the one thing he had left. For the longest time it had been the two of them against the world. Even in the Alpha pack, at least with Aidan, Ethan had found someone to confide in and trust implicitly. That bond had been severed and it would never be re-established. Even through their darkest times under Deucalion they had at least been able to turn to one another for support.

"Aidan died to protect the people he loves and I can't deny that I'd do the same. Does that mean I shouldn't risk loving you? No it doesn't. You could step out in the street tomorrow and get hit by a bus, which is just as likely as a hunter shooting me in the woods." Ethan's sombreness turned into a fire and his face contorted into a smirk that would have been more in place on Aidan's face, "Bottom line: I want the life we have here and if you want it too…you know how to find me."

Ethan stood up and crossed the room back to the window. He lifted it up and swung his right leg over the sill and kept his eyes on Danny who remained bundled up in his duvet. Ethan swung his over leg over and turned to leave but Danny's hand caught his shoulder. Ethan turned round and Danny's hands slipped to the werewolf's waist. Danny shivered at the chill. "I guess I need someone to cuddle." Now it was Danny's turn to smirk.

._._.

"Derek!" A frantic voice called. "Derek?"

As a hand made contact with his face the Beta was yanked back into dismal reality. He groaned loudly as he touched at the bullet wound that was slowly but steadily loosing his blood onto the loft floor beside him. The steady but excruciating throbbing immediately told him the bullets had been laced with wolfsbane. Not enough to kill him but enough to seriously wound him.

"Don't touch it," he croaked, trying and failing to sit up on his arms, "wolfsbane."

The room blurred for a few moments and Derek blinked to adjust. After a few moments Scott moved into resolution and Derek's head stopped spinning. Deaton watched warily a few paces back from the werewolves. "Hunters?"

"Hunter," Derek countered, "an old friend of ours."

Scott's face ruffled in confusion as Derek successfully pushed himself up and onto his feet. The taller wolf swayed uncertainly on his feet but then steadied himself.

"Who?" Scott prodded urgently.

Derek blanched at the memory. "I'd thought it was a dream…something that wasn't a real: a figment drawn from my imagination. I was wrong…they call her _La Loba_..." Dazed he fell to the floor but Scott caught him before he plummeted the whole way. He dragged Derek to prop him against one of the support struts while Deaton thought over the sentence.

"Get him some water." Deaton said to Scott who immediately went off searching through the loft. The Druid crouched beside the obsidian-haired wolf and regarded him.

Derek's breathing was heavier than normal, "It means she-wolf doesn't it?"

"It's more of an umbrella term," Deaton clarified, his dark eyes pulsing at the news, "_Loba_ now refers to any female were-creature. More commonly among hunters though it refers to the were-jaguar. I'd thought that was a myth. Who was it Derek?"

"Kate Argent." he grunted. Scott returned at that point and pressed the glass of water to his mouth and Derek drank eagerly. Deaton looked at the gun wound – the blood flow was decreasing now and his body was starting to heal itself. With that amount of wolfsbane it would be a matter of just letting Derek's body heal itself and slowly but surely purge the poison from his blood stream. There were a few things Deaton could do to ease Derek's pain and speed the process though. His mind raced through the various herbs that he could exploit in the situation – fortunately most of them were inside the case waiting in the car outside.

Scott's face creased, "But she's dead, right?" He turned to a puzzled Deaton.

"Peter scratched her didn't he?" Deaton said to Derek more than questioned. The werewolf managed a weak nod. His breathing was still erratic and Deacon could tell from the sweat forming on Derek's forehead that he had a long way to go before the wolfsbane was fully out of his system. "Scott you go get some rest – I'll take things from here."

._._.

The SUV raced along the winding woodland road that led out of Beacon Hills. Its headlights danced across the repetitive white lines of the road and once in a while struck upon the eyes of woodland creatures that glowed momentarily in the glare of the light before they vanished again left behind by the truck. At this time of night there was nobody on the roads and Chris didn't need to pay attention to any speed limits. Putting as much distance between him and Beacon Hills in as short a time as possible was his objective.

Beside him Isaac dozed lightly. After years of training as a Hunter, determining how deeply someone was sleeping was child's play. Isaac was only breathing shallowly and from his tense body language couldn't be comfortable for very long. He might have resented Isaac had Alison not been so deprived of family over the last months of her life. The two had forged a bond that had only been strengthened by Alison's lack of family life. It wasn't anything that was anyone's fault and in some ways he was glad Alison had found someone she truly loved in Isaac…even if it meant entertaining another juvenile werewolf under his roof.

The headlights glinted on the eyes of something else in the distance except this time the creature didn't flinch. Unlike the rabbits, racoons and other creatures before it this one remained rooted in a low crouch. As the car continued moving it rose from a low crouch and extended itself into a roughly human shape. The silhouette drew out a sniper rifle. For a moment Chris considered ducking but then realised she wasn't aiming at their heads and a moment too late started turning the wheel to spin the car out of her line of fire. Instead the bullet she fired lanced into the front right tire and blew it clean apart. The black SUV flipped end over end and barrel-rolled off the road, dancing over the top of the creature and twirling to a final rest after smashing into a tree.

Isaac came to hanging upside down in his seat. He'd awoken the moment the car left the road but hitting his head on the roof had knocked him out. The sandy-blonde haired beta could feel warm blood pouring down his face from a fresh-head wound and was fairly certain from the excruciating pain in his right wrist that it was broken. He looked down and could see that Argent was unconscious in his chair, his head lolled against the window and blood slowly dripping from a cut torn at the corner of one of his lips. The windscreen had shattered into an ice-field of glass below them.

A scent caught Issac's attention and snapped him away from concern for Alison's Dad. With his uninjured wrist he reached up to try and unbutton his seat belt but another hand was already there. Unclipped Isaac fell to the ground and hit the roof of the card with a thud. Smashed glass immediately dug into his forehead and he yelled out in agony.

"I thought you could use a helping hand," the malevolent voice purred, "give my brother a message will you? His sister's back and she sends her regards." She went silent for a moment and then Isaac heard the safety on a pistol click off. Two excruciating bolts went through his legs as bullets lanced through them. With that Kate Argent vanished into the night.

._._.

Melissa perched on the coffee table and watched Isaac sleeping. Concern flowed through her for the boy who'd become a second son to her. As a werewolf of course his wounds had mostly healed over and he was simply working off the pain that came with the physical signs of the ordeal he'd suffered. She could hear Scott creeping down the staircase a full thirty seconds before he joined her.

"He's gonna be okay right?"

"He'll be fine," Melissa counselled knowingly, "are you? With Isaac and Derek on the same night that's a lot to deal with."

Scott nodded immediately and realised as soon as he'd done it that his Mom wouldn't be placated that easily. She saw through the smokescreen with ease.

"You were out early this evening…you crept out again at like two and now again at five?" Melissa raised one of her eyebrows accusingly, "Are you coping with all this alright?"

"I'm on top of it." Scott affirmed more determinedly this time.

"Sorry," Melissa said, her tone much softer, "I didn't mean to accuse…I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I mean so soon after Alison…all this…it'd be a lot for anyone to handle Scott."

He could still feel her in his arms. Remembering seeing the light in her eyes go out and feel the life seep from her body. Feel the unbearable pain that even he couldn't relieve her of and save her from. By rights Isaac should have been sadder than Scott was about the news and Scott shouldn't have been so entitled to feel so devastated…but she was his first love.

He and Alison had been through so much together. He'd almost lost her to the darkness before pulling her back to the light and finally they'd established a relationship that wasn't hugely uncomfortable. They'd avoided the prickly period where exes try to ruin each other's lives because they'd each moved on. There had also been a deep love layered into their friendship and it was the kind of bond that wasn't severed except by force.

The Oni had robbed Alison from him as a friend and a confidant. Honestly Scott had pushed it away and put it on lock-down. Too much emotion made you impulsive – especially if you were a werewolf with a body already teeming with hormones. In light of the recent experience with the Nogitsune it also made sense not to give in to the emotional turmoil and chaos Alison's death had naturally enough left in its wake.

He could feel the tears stinging in his eyes but he held them in place as he looked at his Mom. She looked sad but at the same time reassuring. Somehow her face seemed world-wise and it was all he needed. He slipped into her arms and she held him as he cried quietly.

"You're gonna be fine Scott," she promised and kissed his head, "somewhere she's looking down at you…and us…and she's probably laughing about how awkwardly familial we're being."

That got a nervous laugh out of him and Scott uncurled himself from her arms and smiled at her weakly.

"We'll get through this together. Whoever did that to Isaac and Derek will get stopped. You always find a way."

._._.

_Thanks for reading! Comments always appreciated and if you have any suggestions please do PM._

_Acrobat_

_X_


	3. For Dreamers

"So you're saying Alison's sociopathic werewolf-killing aunt is back and she's a were-jaguar?" Stiles quizzed, his weak smile disguising a mounting torrent of terror inside him.

Fortunately they'd gotten to school early enough that they didn't need to worry about being overheard. The parking lot would be dead for another half hour – besides them the only people who were here this early were Matheletes and the kind of jocks who'd make an Olympic team some day. Scott's shadowy eyes looked up to the overcast sky and then back to his best friend.

Scott nodded grimly, "Deaton called again this morning – he thinks Peter Hale turned Kate when he ripped her neck out."

"But why a were-jaguar?" They started walking toward the school from the parking lot. "I mean I get like werewolves, were-foxes and I mean I accepted the whole were-coyote thing…but a were-jaguar? I thought the species were just North American?"

"Well apparently not," Scott dismissed as they walked toward the school doors, "why are we at school this early anyway?"

"I just wanted to get a head start on that project we have to do."

Scott saw through the excuse in an instant, "You want to avoid her don't you?"

"Her who?" Stiles tried to divert.

"_Malia_." Scott replied smirking.

"What?" Stiles blanched. "No! Me? Avoid Malia…why would you think that? You're _crazy_."

"Am I?" Scott razed a mocking eyebrow. "You still feel awkward because you had sex with her."

Stiles went from white to bright red in a single word. The two friends stopped in the car park and Stiles lowered his voice despite them being alone. "I just don't really…you know…know what to say to her."

Scott laughed and then started walking toward school again, "Well you can get used to her being around Stiles." His friend groaned as they pushed through the doors to the school.

._._.

Kira's heart skipped a beat the moment she spotted Scott leaning against his locker with Stiles. It was so stupid and immature but just the knowledge she'd be around him imminently put a little flutter in her stomach. It was like the rush before a roller-coaster set off – knowing something was about to happen and that she'd strapped herself into the harness so she just had to embrace it. The hallway was clogged with people – first period on Monday was looming and it made everyone move as lethargically as possible: once you sat down in that class-room the weekend was officially over and another week of boredom would begin in earnest.

"Hey," Kira greeted timidly as Scott made eye contact with her, on the spur of the moment she pecked him on the lips, when they parted he smiled, "hey Stiles."

Stiles nodded warmly and then blushed again – he'd spotted someone over their shoulders. "You know what I'm…I will just see you in first period." With that he vanished into the flow of people.

"What's up with him?" Kira enquired, she turned her head and scanned the hallway. At last she spotted Malia weaving her way through the hallway. The pretty brunette was smiling warmly, her chestnut eyes searching for a friendly face in the sea and her hands clasping an off-putting number of books to her chest. The dark covers were stark against her pale floral print dress. "Oh. Is he still?"

Scott nodded and rolled his eyes.

"Did Stiles really just run away when he saw me?" Malia prodded inquisitively, her forehead creasing in confusion.

Kira raced for an answer that avoided the obvious, "No…he just has…a…erm…"

"…project due first period," Scott finished for her, he smiled reassuringly, "don't worry about it though. He's just a little…awkward."

Malia nodded unconvincingly and leaned back against the lockers beside Scott, "So anything exciting happen this weekend?"

"Oh yeah," Scott laughed a little, "a lot of _exciting_ stuff – I'll tell you on the way to Math."

._._.

"So the hunters following her are all dead?" Argent enquired from the hospital bed. Derek nodded – from the look of him you wouldn't know he'd had his body pumped full of wolfsbane the day before. His icy eyes seemed to pulse with thought and his dark hair was coiffed to perfection.

The broad-shouldered man nodded, "She shot them before she shot me. Got them right where she wanted them and then _bang, bang_."

Argent frowned in the bed – unlike Derek he didn't have a self-healing body. He'd suffered a few cracked ribs in the crash and a concussion. He was getting over the latter but the former was going to take a lot of time. As he thought about them they seemed to throb in agony again.

"You said they were Spanish?"

"Yeah…they kept calling her _La Loba_ again, and again."

"It's a legend even the Argents are familiar with…I've never comes across a Were-Jaguar but they're particularly ferocious. In the same way a wolf gains strength, a jaguar gains speed and stealth – that's probably how Kate gave them the slip so easily." Argent frowned deeply. "You know none of them safe."

"Her coming back will be about Peter," Derek disagreed, "why else come back?"

"Once she finds out about Alison she'll go after Scott." Argent sighed. "I'm surprised she didn't kill herself when she came back."

"She never respected the code before," Derek reminded, "why did she go straight after you and Isaac then?"

The greying hunter shrugged in bed and immediately winced in pain. He thumbed the control for more painkillers and then sank back in bed. "Isaac passed on the message – she wanted to tell me to not get in her way. Now I can't."

"Then someone else has to." Derek bristled at the thought of seeing Kate again. She'd ruined his life once and he wasn't about to let her do it again. He made to leave but Argent grabbed his arm. Derek could easily have shaken off the weak grasp but let it pull him back into the chair.

"Look her up first – track her and observe her. You go rushing off to engage Kate and she'll swat you like a fly."

"Count on it."

._._.

"Two things to remember – don't talk to me during and don't expect me to talk to you _ever again_ after." With that, Lydia grabbed the guy's shirt and wrenched him forward into a passionate kiss. Empty offices and classrooms had always been where she'd snatched a guilty moment with Aidan and filling the void he'd left was easy enough with the random she had found walking the deserted hallways between classes.

Within seconds her hands had danced down to his fly and were moving over the buttons with ease that only a lot of practice delivers. Her hands swooped and weaved and groped and within seconds she'd forgotten the world and any cares she had floated away. She could shut out the pain, the screams and the cries. She wasn't a Banshee. She was just a ghost drifting on the wind: and she loved it.

._._.

Stiles had managed to avoid Malia's eye line in Math, dodged her in History by partnering with some stranger and was almost safely through to lunch without seeing her. He moved round a corner and breathed a sigh of relief. The coast was clear. He walked out into the centre and then ice danced down his back as voice cleared itself behind him. He spun round and relaxed more once he locked eyes with Danny. "Are you _trying_ to give me heart failure?"

"You're the one creeping around like your in 70s cartoon show." Danny countered mischievously. "Who're you hiding from?"

"No-one."

"A girl?"

"_No-one_." Styles said, trying to sound firmer.

"A boy?" Danny cocked an eyebrow and Styles's eyes felt like they bulged. He never seemed to say the right thing around Danny.

"Fine you know what, I'm hiding from a girl because we…did stuff a while back and haven't spoken since, and now I'm hiding because that's easier than humiliation."

"Malia?" Danny twigged. Styles pale face blanched and Danny did an expression that should have been accompanied with a punch in the air. The taller boy studied Styles for a moment and his grin broadened like the Cheshire Cat, "She took your virginity?"

"Shhhh," Styles switched from blanch to burning red in a second, "would you not," his voice moved to a whisper, "discuss my sexual experience…or lack thereof in the _middle_ of the hallway!"

Danny held his hands up and shrugged, "Shouldn't you be acting casual so you don't draw attention to yourself?"

"Well," Styles witty responses deserted him, "maybe." With that he headed straight and confidently through into the cafeteria and Danny followed him. Immediately the trickle of confidence that had stemmed from the change in walking pace vanished and Styles felt his confidence vanish. Styles and Malia were sat facing them at a table. Worse still Danny had decided to usher him straight toward the table.

._._.

"You can go now." Lydia said coldly, fixing her hair and rolling her fuchsia chinos back into perfect place just above her ankles. The random she'd picked up scowled a little and then promptly left her. Studying him more closely Lydia picked up on something different about him but she wasn't sure what. She'd discovered recently she wasn't exactly a great judge of character and the tall, dark and handsome random walking away was probably just another bad mistake that had already happened. She shrugged, turned around and then jumped out of her skin.

Kira's brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed, "Wait, did you two just?" She peered inside the supply closet, grimaced and then turned back to Lydia, "In there?"

Lydia pulled a stray strand of hair back into line with a stiff twist of her finger and then gave Kira a look that she'd trained Alison to read as: _stop asking questions_. Unfortunately Kira hadn't taken even so much as summer school at The Davis Academy of Expression Interpretation and consequently ploughed on. "Who was he?"

"It doesn't matter." Lydia dismissed. The strawberry blonde decided she needed lunch and set off for the cafeteria in the opposite direction to the random. Kira kept pace with her.

Kira looked over her shoulder: the boy was gone now. "He's cute."

"He's forgotten," Lydia reaffirmed, her mouth curling down into a frown.

"Is this about-"

"-don't say it." Lydia shot down.

"I just meant-"

"-_really_, don't say it."

Kira stopped, "If you're working through stuff about Aidan we can talk."

"I'd rather we didn't," Lydia forced a closed-lips smile, "Aidan is gone and I'm at peace with it. That boy was just some harmless fun to take my mind off this afternoon's geography test."

Kira puzzled over that but didn't say anything more. Perhaps she'd presumed too much of her friendship with Lydia too early. She didn't have all that much experience with friends and she was keen not to mess things up. Alison had so clearly been a part of the lives of Lydia, Scott and Styles that she didn't want to step on any toes. She'd never be Alison – never the tragic warrior, doomed first love nor hole filling best friend: she could only be Kira and do her best to build bonds but she had to be careful – too much, too soon and she'd do exactly what she wanted to avoid. Evidently trying to involve herself with Lydia's veiled grief had been overstepping the mark.

Lydia's green eyes danced along the corridor anywhere other than Kira. It was as if the girl had swung a katana at her and stabbed straight through to her soul with the comments about Aidan. In words it was a pinprick but the inquisition had stung like a knife. The boys had tried their best, but Scott and Styles for all the good they could do had never liked Aidan and at a base level that prohibited them from sympathising with Lydia's sadness convincingly. On Alison they could help but it was also undeniable distance had been placed between the boys and her leading up to her death. There'd been a detachment somehow that would never be mended. Even in death in Scott's arms, Lydia doubted whether everything had been healed and like the scream of someone in their death-throes, the rawness of the wounds in Scott from the death were obvious to her.

If a few hook-ups here and there took her mind away from Aidan, Alison and the grim reality of her ongoing life then Lydia was all for it. She could just do without analysis from Kira, even if she meant well and was only trying to make things better for her. The west entrance to the cafeteria loomed up: two white swing doors with opaque glass that heralded a social onslaught. Kira had overtaken her by a few steps and got to the doors first.

Lydia scanned the room and her eyes fell upon Scott, the new girl Malia and a very uncomfortable-looking Styles. Then she spotted Aidan and froze on the spot. His warm eyes were studying her intently, his hair a burning bright red and his heart beating loudly all around her. He was walking toward her and she watched him, her eyes tearing up at the sight of him. Then in a flash he was on the floor, bleeding out and she was too far away to reach him. She broke into a run toward him but the cafeteria was stretching out now into a white void. Aidan was crying out in agony for her to save him and she couldn't reach him. He screamed and Lydia snapped back into the cafeteria as if nothing had gone on.

It had been Ethan.

Aidan's twin was sat enjoying lunch with Danny.

"You saw him didn't you?" Kira prodded gently.

Lydia rounded on her furiously, "I didn't see anyone. Stop prying in and stop acting like we're friends." She retraced her steps and stormed out of the cafeteria. There wasn't anyone in there for her anyway.

._._.

Lydia could at most have spent a minute in the cafeteria. Scott watched the strawberry blonde stride in, stop and leave. Kira looked a little dazed by the whole thing before she headed over and glumly sank into the vacant seat next to Malia.

"She seemed angry." Scott nodded toward the door Lydia had just darted through.

Kira sighed and pulled out her lunch bag, "I think I pushed her buttons." She dumped the brown bag on the table unnecessarily hard and it tore up the side.

Scott smiled because he couldn't think of anything better to do at that point.

"Good first day?" He asked Malia because he could think of nothing better to say.

"Not the worst Monday on record," she said simply, her chocolate eyes distant, "how was your day Styles?" Malia slotted a piece of pasta into her mouth and locked eyebrows with him. Styles immediately squirmed and she suppressed the urge to giggle. It was a little mean to play with him like that but Styles obviously felt more awkward about the whole thing than she did and that was something she could play with.

"It was you know…erm…hot," Styles felt heat rising to his cheeks, "I meant the day…_the day_ was hot."

"Today?" Malia toyed, "It's been raining since eleven?"

"You're right. It's been cool all day." Styles looked to Scott for help but his best friend was wearing a smile that was only widening all the time.

Malia's face looked devilish, "Do you have something else on your mind?"

"What? No." Styles's face was flaming now.

Kira rolled her eyes, "Styles she's messing with you." At that point Scott and Malia collapsed in giggles and Styles eyes radiated venomous fury.

"Sorry," Malia said between laughs, "it was just too worth it!"

"You know I'm glad my prevailing social awkwardness is so comedic for you all." Styles rose to his feet, "I'll see you all in Biology." He jerked backwards on his chair and left them to it.

"Two angry friends. Great." Kira elongated the vowels in the last word.

Malia shrugged, "He tried to avoid me this morning…I'm just repaying the favour. He can be a big boy and talk or keep being a jerk."

"He's just a little awkward. He'll come round." Scott reassured.

._._.

"Do you spend a lot of time running from werewolves?"

Lydia turned round so she could see up the stair-case. She locked eyes with the boy from before and now she got a better chance to look at his features. He was tall – maybe six foot – and had a Latin complexion. His eyes were dark and intense, and his face young-old. He was undeniably a teenager but there was a worn quality to it like the scorched surface of a desert. He also seemed to have taken a much more ominous tone to him now.

"Werewolves?" Playing dumb would be best to draw him out.

"Men…or boys in your case that turn into creatures of fantasy and myth at the moon." His accent was definitely Spanish-flavoured. Lydia's heart was pounding faster now and she couldn't place it on the undercurrent of threat in his voice or the attraction she'd felt toward him. "You can dispense with the mask by the way. You're a Banshee not a master liar."

Lydia rolled her eyes switching tactics, "I've honestly no idea what you're talking about. What's with all the words anyway – you weren't that concerned this morning?"

"Reconnaissance."

He was distinctly better dressed than he had been in the morning. The burgundy leather jacket only enhanced his tanned skin tone and the slim fit jeans gave perfect definition to the pair of legs Lydia was already familiar with.

Lydia spiralled up and advanced on him, "Why me?"

"People who go straight for the wolves don't last long – it's their friends that the smart ones go after." He reached out and grabbed Lydia's wrist and pulled her face-to-face with him. "Who's the alpha?"

"I thought you were the _smart one_?" Lydia wrenched her wrist back and swept her auburn locks over one shoulder. She walked past the boy and put a safe amount of distance between herself and the stranger.

The stranger let out a deep laugh, "Going through you was easier than stalking him outright and giving myself away."

"Then what's this meeting doing? You think I'll keep quiet?" Lydia sparred.

The boy's smile hardened, "I know you won't."

Lydia didn't know what to make of him but she didn't care. He was boring her and had evidently misjudged things if he thought her first recourse when intimidated would be to fall apart in front of him.

"Next time be careful going after a Banshee. We may not be master liars but we're liable to scream and if that were to happen…well…those wolves you're so concerned about might come running." She said the words in barely a whisper. The boy watched her walk off to the upper floor until she passed out of sight.

._._.

The old man watched out across the landscape, clutching raspy breaths and silently cursing the world around him. After all his days on the world he'd ended up afflicted by the one thing he despised most and cursed to live out his dying days hideously debilitated and more fundamentally alone.

"I'd heard the rumours you know." Gerard murmured between snatched breaths. "The murdered children, the savage creature prowling the Amazon basin and the army of street creatures sweeping Sao Paolo. I never expected you to come crawling back here though _Kate_."

"Oh Dad," she said feigning care, "I need something from you. You wouldn't leave daddy's little girl wanting, now would you?"


End file.
